Tuesday, May 20, 2014

"That's What Friends Are For"

“Come
on, Jenny—can’t you do anything other than play with your computer?”

Jennara
Stadi cast a glance at her mirror image and frowned. “Ani, I’ve asked you not
to call me that. A ‘jenny’ is an unmated female donkey, and I am not a donkey.”

Mirani
Stadi groaned. “Maybe on Earth that’s what a ‘jenny’ is. Here in this house
it’s my twin sister. And my Jenny
said she would go to the park with me today—promised, even.”

Jennara
rolled her eyes, sighing. “You’re really going to hold a fickle
eleven-year-old’s promise against her? Kids change their minds all the time,
you know.”

“But
you promised, Jen!” Mirani whined, then grinned. “Besides, Mom and Dad said we
could go by ourselves as long as we’re home for dinner.”

At
this news, Jennara brightened. Although she and her sister were responsible and
mature for 11-year-old twins, they were still so young that their parents
didn’t often let them leave their neighborhood without one or the other being
present—not that they didn’t trust their girls, of course. They were just
concerned for their safety.

At
least that’s what their mother and father always told them. Sometimes the twins
thought they were just being nosy, overprotective parents.

“Really?
Four whole hours all by ourselves?”

Mirani’s
grin matched her own. “Yup—no Mom. No Dad. Just us and some real fun!”

“Awesome!”
Jennara cheered, then quickly shut down her computer terminal and ran with her sister
out of her room.

“Hold
on a minute!” Their mother, Alisia, said as the two were about to burst out the
front door.

Both
girls groaned, shoulders slumped and exclaiming “Mom!” in unison.

Alisia
stood with her hands on her hips, looking at the girls sternly. “I just want to
go over the rules for going out by yourselves,” she said.

“Mom,
you do this every time!” complained Mirani. “We’re not ignoramuses—we do have
memories, you know.”

“Ani,
shut up before she says we can’t go!” Jennara hissed, elbowing her sister in
the ribs, eliciting an “Ow!” from her twin.

Ignoring
the byplay, their mother went on. “You know dinner’s at seven, so be in the
house by…?”

“Six-thirty,”
replied Jennara.

“And
you don’t talk to…?”

“Strange
adults we don’t know,” muttered Mirani.

“If
someone looks suspicious, makes you uncomfortable, or threatens someone else,
what do you do?” their mother pressed.

“Find
a comm station and call the authorities,” spoke up Jennara again.

Alisia
Stadi smiled. “Very good. Do you need any credits for the vending machines or
the food carts in the park?”

“All
set, Mother,” Mirani said. “Can we go now?”

The
older Betazoid raised her eyebrow, but she nodded. “All right, go. Have fun,
girls.”

Looking
at each other with wide, happy grins, Mirani and Jennara raced out of the
house, heading for Pyram Park.

*****

Pyram Park

“Well,
look who it is. Hey guys, you see who it is? Ol’ Pointy Ears!”

The
gaggle of mostly Betazoid boys laughed and pointed. Dareth had hoped to avoid
running into any of them, but his luck, such as it was, was already out for the
day.

Figures, he thought sourly
as he turned and tried to go around them.

“Whoa,
hold on a minute, Pointy—we wanna talk to you,” said the first boy, stepping
into Dareth’s path.

The
boy called Crixus frowned. “What’s the matter, Pointy Ears? Aren’t my friends
and I good enough to talk to?”

Dareth
looked up, feeling suddenly bold. “As a matter of fact, no. You guys are all
jerks who like to beat up on anyone who isn’t just like you.”

“Jerks,
huh?” Crixus said darkly, stepping closer. “Gee, why do you think you’re even
here, Pointy Ears? Huh? ‘Cause your parents are jerks. You’re not like everyone
else on that pathetic dustball you call a home planet—you’re not a good little
emotionless Vulcan like all the other kids, so your parents sent you here where
we all have emotions. They sent you here because you’re an embarrassment to
them, such an embarrassment your own parents didn’t even want you!”

With
a strangled cry, Dareth launched himself at the boy, knocking him to the
ground. He raised up a fist to punch him as hard as he could, but it was caught
by one of the other boys. He writhed wildly, kicking his legs as two of the
five boys hauled him up and held him
while Crixus got up, holding him between them as their leader came up and
punched Dareth in the face. He punched him in the face again, then in the
stomach, before shouting caught the attention of all of them.

“Hey,
what the hell do you think you’re doing?! Leave him alone, you jerks!”

Over
Crixus’ shoulder, Dareth could see two identical girls about his age running
toward them. They had dark brown, almost black hair and the tell-tale black
eyes of Betazoids.

“Shit,
Crix, them’s the Stadi twins!” said Aaron Partee, the one Human boy in the
group.

“Crixus
Berrin, wait ‘til I tell your mother what you’ve been doing out here!” shouted
the girl on the left, the one who’d spoken before.

Crixus
grinned. “Tell her! See if I care!” he called back, then turned and punched
Dareth again. This time he felt his lip split, his green blood welling from the
small wound. Looking suddenly like he was disgusted, Crixus backed away from
him, and fearing he was about to be kicked, he tried to brace himself.

“Let
him go, boys. Pointy Ears ain’t worth our time,” he said, spitting on the
ground as Dareth was unceremoniously dropped. The boys all chuckled as the five
of them walked away.

Dareth
was feeling his swelling, bleeding lip as the twin girls came up to him. “Hey,
you alright?” asked the one on the right.

He
looked up at her sourly. “I just got beat down by a bunch of fracking morons,
what the frell do you think?”

“Look,
we just saved your butt from an even worse beating than they could have given
you—you could at least be grateful!” the girl said hotly, crossing her arms
over her chest.

“Ani!
Leave him alone, he doesn’t need to be bullied by you too,” said the other
girl, the one on the left, as she knelt down to look him in the eye.

“Are
you alright?” she asked softly.

Dareth
looked at her, and seeing her gentle, concerned expression, bit his tongue so
he wouldn’t fling out the scathing reply he’d thought of. “Yeah, I’m alright,”
he said. “Only reason they got the best of me was ‘cause there was five of ‘em.
One or two I coulda taken on my own. Vulcans are stronger than Betazoids, even
as kids. Crixus is a flakking jerkoff who’s too chicken-shit to face me on his
own.”

The
girl still standing raised an eyebrow at him. “You’ve sure got a dirty mouth
for a Vulcan. What happened to all the logic and discipline you guys are
supposed to practice?”

The
dark look he sent her way had her not only silencing her tongue, but taking a
step back. Dareth stood slowly, speaking as he faced her. “None of your
business,” he said, his voice cold and mean. Then he turned around and started
back the way he’d come.

“Hey,
wait a minute!” called out one of the girls.

“Jennara,
let him go,” said the other. “He obviously wants to be left alone.”

Apparently,
Jennara was ignoring her sister, as she was beside him in a second or two.
“Where are you going?” she asked, walking quickly to keep up with his longer
stride.

“What
do you care?” Dareth retorted.

“Because
I do,” she replied. “I’m Jennara, by the way. Jennara Stadi. Is your house
close by? Will your parents be mad if you come home with a split lip? Oh, wait,
sorry—I guess as Vulcans they wouldn’t be mad, huh?”

“My
parents will probably never know,” he replied bitterly. “They’re not even here
on this stinking planet.”

“You
didn’t… you didn’t run away from home, did you?” his companion asked
tentatively.

With
an exasperated sigh, Dareth stopped and looked at her. “Look, what do you
care?” he repeated. “You’ve done your good deed for the day, go feel good about
yourself somewhere else.”

He
tried not to feel anything as her cheeks flamed red and her eyes filled with
tears. With her lower lip trembling, she whispered. “Sorry. I…I just thought
maybe you might want a friend or something. I didn’t mean to pry.”

Jennara
turned away from him as she sniffled—he could tell she was trying not to let
the tears fall. Feeling suddenly like a jerkoff himself, he reached out and touched
her arm before she got too far away.

“I’m
sorry I yelled at you,” Dareth said slowly. He wasn’t used to apologizing,
wasn’t sure he was doing it right. “It’s just that… Well, I ain’t had anybody
be too nice to me since I got here. I mean actual nice, not fake nice like all
the adults around here who just feel sorry for me.”

She’d
stopped, and he could see her sister down the path, still waiting for her.
Jennara sniffled but didn’t look at him. “Well I wasn’t being fake at all. I
just saw someone who looked lonely, and I thought I’d be nice.”

“Am
I that pathetically obvious? Or did you read my emotions?”

She
turned to him then. “Neither. First, I don’t think you’re pathetic, and it’s
not obvious, but I am smart enough to recognize someone who doesn’t have any
friends. And second, I can’t read emotions or do telepathy or anything like
that yet. I’m not old enough. Maybe in another year or so.”

Dareth
shrugged. “Oh, I didn’t know that. I just figured you guys—Betazoids I mean—could
do that stuff all the time. I didn’t know you had to be a certain age or
anything.”

“It’s
another one of the joys to look forward to during puberty, along with hormones
and body changes like armpit hair,” Jennara said with a roll of her eyes.

Unable
to help himself, Dareth chuckled. “Yeah, fun times ahead.”

An
awkward silence fell and Jennara looked down at her feet. “So, um… can I ask
you something?” she queried.

He
raised one of his slanted eyebrows. “What?” he countered warily.

“Where
are your parents?”

Dareth
scoffed. “Vulcan,” he said, the bitter edge returning to his tone.

“But
why aren’t they here with you? Are you here by yourself?” she wondered.

He
nodded. “Yeah, I’m by myself. My mom and dad dumped me here because they’re too
embarrassed to be seen with me. I hate them.”

“What
makes you think your parents are embarrassed to be seen with you and don’t want
you?”

Dareth
struggled not to get angry, but it still really burned that they’d done this to
him. It wasn’t fair, though, to take his anger at his mom and dad out on
Jennara, who was just curious and trying to be nice. She really was the first
kid his age who had been nice to him in the last few weeks. Most of the other
kids just avoided him because he was “weird”—except for Crixus Berrin and his
cronies, who liked to pick on him because he was different.

“I
have a condition,” he said, all but spitting the last word. “The healers called
it Partial Psionary Absentia. Apparently, there’s a gland in the Vulcan brain,
the psionary gland, that secretes this hormone that helps a Vulcan control
their emotions, even though most of how they do it is based on a mastery of
self. But this hormone apparently helps somehow—I’m not really sure how, but it
does. Anyway, my gland that is supposed to make it doesn’t make enough or some
such crap, and that means I will probably never be able to fully purge my
emotions. I’ll never achieve kolinahr,
the state of pure logic—and my parents are embarrassed that they produced a son
who will never be like the great Surak. I’m worse an embarrassment than if I
was v’tosh’ ka’tur. At least they
have a choice, but I don’t.”

“Well
that don’t make no sense!” Jennara exclaimed. “How can your mom and dad hold it
against you for it being a biological thing? You don’t have any control over
that.”

“That’s
exactly what I think!” Dareth replied. “Not my fault I have a birth defect, but
what did they do instead of take care of me like parents should? Just ‘cause
they didn’t know what to do with me, they shipped their forever emotional son
off to a boarding school on a planet filled with the most emotional beings in
the entire fracking galaxy. Guess they figured I’d fit right in, and boy were
they wrong. Emotional Vulcans stick out like a sore thumb anywhere you go.”

He
eyed her with one eyebrow raised. “Awfully full of yourself, aren’t you?
Thinking you’re so great and all that? How do I know you’re the kind of friend
I want?”

Her
grin faltered, and he felt like a jerk again. “Well, I don’t think I’m all that
great or anything,” she said slowly. “But I know I’m a nice person. I don’t
play mean tricks or gossip or anything.”

“Hey,
I’m sorry, alright?” Dareth said. “I just… I don’t know what the heck I’m
doing. I don’t have friends—I’ve never had friends, so I don’t know how to be
one. Maybe you’d be better off just forgetting about a loser like me.”

“But
if I just walked away and forgot about you, what kind of friend would that make
me?” Jennara countered. “Not a very good one, and I ain’t never walked away
from anybody. I’m not gonna start now. I can show you what it’s like having
friends and being a friend—Mirani can too. She’s really not so bad once you get
to know her, I promise. My sister only acted like she did because she’s really
protective of me—which is totally crazy ‘cause I’m older than her by like,
three whole minutes.”

“Can
I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Why
do you even want to bother with a freak like me?” Dareth asked. “Your other
friends might not like me, and your sister might not like me. Your parents
might not want you hanging around me.”

“Okay,
first of all, you have to stop calling yourself names,” Jennara said with a
firm nod, placing her hands on her hips in the same manner as her sister had
done earlier. “You’re not pathetic, or a loser, or a freak. You’re just a kid
who got a bad break. Second, I want my
other friends to like you, sure, but if they don’t that’s their problem, and
maybe that means they’re not such great friends to have after all. Third, I
already told you Mirani will like you just fine once you guys get to know each
other. I’m her twin sister—trust me, I know her better than she knows herself.”

“Okay,
but what about your mom and dad?”

“My
parents will like you too. They’ll feel the same way I do,” she told him.

“What,
they’re gonna take pity on me?” he shot back sarcastically. “I don’t want
anyone’s pity or charity, thanks. I’d rather be alone.”

Jennara
groaned, and grabbing him by the arm, started to drag him back down the path
toward her sister, who was now tapping a foot like she wanted her to hurry up.
“Deities, I have so much work to do,”
she grumbled.

Dareth
hesitated only a moment, but curious in spite of himself, he allowed her to
lead him away. “Where are you taking me?” he asked.

“I’m
going to take you to my house so you can meet my mom,” Jennara said. “So you
can see for yourself that she’s not going to pity you. I might even be able to
convince her to use a dermal regenerator on your lip and give you something for
the pain—if you can behave and at
least pretend not to be an idiot.”

Despite
being obviously annoyed, Mirani grinned. “Darn right,” she said confidently.
“I’m gonna join Starfleet and be a pilot on the best ship they have when I get
older.”

She
looked Dareth up and down. “So I take it you want to be friends with this kid?”
she asked.

“Dareth
could use good friends like us, Ani,” Jennara said. “He doesn’t have any.”

Mirani
studied him a moment longer, and right when he was about to get really annoyed
with her staring, she suddenly turned to her sister and said brightly, “You
know, you’re right—we are the good guys, aren’t we? Besides, he could do a heck
of a lot worse—Crixus could have liked
him.”

“No
way,” Dareth replied. “Ain’t no way I’d be friends with a jerk like him.”

Mirani
surprised him then by stepping over and taking his other arm—he was now stuck
between the twins with nowhere to go unless he got violent, and he certainly wasn’t
about to hurt them. They were girls,
for goodness’ sake. If his dad had taught him anything useful in his almost-ten
years, it’s that a real man never hit a woman.

“Then
aren’t you glad we came to your rescue?” Mirani was saying as they started walking
again.

“Oh
yeah, I got rescued by a couple of girls—yet one more reason for Crixus Berrin
to pick on me. Thanks for the reminder.”

The
twins looked around him and grinned at each other. “That’s what friends are
for,” Jennara said with a laugh.

Although he groaned dramatically and rolled his eyes, inside Dareth was smiling. Friends, he thought. I really like the sound of that.

2 comments:

Hehe, I imagine that might happen a lot for folks who weren't big on Voyager or don't recall much of the first episode. Thing is, I struggled to name the sisters because Voyager's pilot was never referred to by her first name (one game I played called her Veronica, which I didn't feel fit since she's not Human), nor do we know if she actually had family. In fact, Jennara - who will grow up to become first officer of the Nova-class U.S.S. Journey (my very first fanfic ship) - was originally conceived as being a mirror universe version of Voyager's pilot. But another writer convinced me (erroneously or no? who is to say) to go another direction with her, so she became a twin sister instead.

If I can ever get my Muse to cooperate with me (she's been real fussy the last several months), I'll write more for all of Journey's crew and all the other myriad people that inhabit my little universe.